QUESTION: Can Pathwork claim to be truly making use of all the spiritual contributions available to us from the riches of humanity’s cultural history?

ANSWER: It would be truly absurd to assume that any path, any spiritual educational and healing system, any schooling, any philosophy, any religion, any book, could make such a claim. The diversification of God’s creation is too widespread in order to put it all in a nutshell, as it were. The truth of Creation could not be put into a million books and treatises. And yet it could be contained in one word, if man’s understanding is geared to it.

What the path does, however, is to communicate the kind of knowledge immediately necessary in order to undertake the personal purification of those who are called to go this road. Therefore the knowledge given is very cohesive, relevant and connected. It is focused on that which is truly of weight and importance. You could go and collect knowledge all over the globe, esoteric and non-esoteric knowledge, and it would be a meaningless pursuit, unless the knowledge is geared to a specific and meaningful goal. Collecting knowledge would become a burden and would confuse and defocus you, unless it is given with the understanding of what is important now, and why.

No spiritual teacher of genuine origin and calling will dispense knowledge just for the sake of it. So please keep in mind that the point is not obtaining knowledge per se. The point is to expand your consciousness, so that, among many other gains, you can properly assimilate and put this knowledge to use. It would no longer be wisdom if those cultural riches are not used in a way that must benefit personal purification, liberation, transcendence, and thus finally to help others to attain this goal. This path does make “use” of all of God’s truth that is relevant to this purpose.

From lecture 218, THE EVOLUTIONARY PROCESS:

There is no event in your life, big or small, outer or inner, that is not an intrinsic message or a meaningful manifestation of the whole process. Your task and path consist of deciphering these messages, of understanding the meaning behind the events or moods you are in. To the degree you make deliberate efforts to do so, you will succeed, though not immediately and not always in a straight line. But the meaning will evolve, surely and inexorably. The more this is the case, the deeper your security, peace and joy will be. Conversely, the meaning of your life and your experiences, your moods and states of mind, will never take on deeper meaning without serious effort and commitment. To the degree you do not make this effort and commitment, your life will be sterile and anxiety-ridden.

When you experience events as isolated haphazard happenings, life must appear meaningless, frightening, confusing and burdensome. When you begin to perceive the incredible meaningfulness, the much wider wisdom and purpose of every event ? how it is deeply connected with and a part of the wise and wholesome totality of your life, of the sequences of life ? then all fear and confusion must vanish, because everything you experience has its deepest meaning and connection. That awareness can be established only when your outer consciousness is willing to make the effort to overcome the always existing temptation to yield in the direction of least resistance. Usually you just put it aside ? this event, or that mood or inner climate, or a particular state of emotional reaction ? as one of those things that happen because of an isolated, disconnected coincidence. Even though you may no longer pay lip service to coincidence, your emotional reactions are still geared to it, as if your experience were a product of ?it.? ?If only this or that would have happened differently, then I would be happy? or, ?If only this particular person could react differently, then all would be well? ? these familiar reactions, although not necessarily expressed in these exact words, indicate a lingering belief that life is haphazard and that your state of mind depends on others and on circumstances that have little if anything to do with a meaningful reality beyond the surface. This is why you become depressed, anxious, confused. It is only when you ask yourself about whatever happens to you, every day and every hour of your life ? ?How could this be a message, or a reflection, or an indication, or a sign of a total picture about my life and its course that I still do not completely grasp?? ? that you will gain meaningful answers, that the inner cohesive reality will reveal itself to you. Then all the little pieces of your life, your experiences, your state of mind, will fall into place.

Believe me, my friends, there is nothing you experience that does not have to be exactly the way it is. This is not because some deity predestines it for you in a spirit of punishment or reward. That kind of thinking totally misses the point. It is much rather like this: your experiences are the product of where you are on your journey within your own process. This is why you cannot be at any other place.

Each process is intrinsically your own, different from the next one. Each individual has his or her own reality, even though that reality must be in concordance with the universal reality, based on its laws and truths. The acceptance of the state you are in leads to going with your movement, with your process, fearlessly letting out what there may be. My friends, let these words be an incentive and inspiration to you to make a fuller and more total commitment to all of yourself, for in that way you will find the trust in your inner process and understand its truly heavenly beauty! You will know its language that will communicate itself to you and through which you will discover the immeasurable beauty of that process, the wisdom of it, the meaning of it, and the peace that is contained in it. You will feel the ongoing aliveness that you know you possess and are a part of, regardless of outer manifestations. The outer manifestations are, as I said, in themselves a meaningful and alive part of the whole, even though they may momentarily seem painful, ugly and not alive. But when you make the connection between the manifestations and your process, your perception must change drastically. What you experienced as senseless ? and therefore frightening and ugly ? suddenly becomes infused with divine meaning.

A number of laws apply to the evolutionary inner process. These laws must not be confused with the general universal laws, which apply to all states of consciousness and to all entities. They apply to those beyond the evolutionary process, to those not yet within the evolutionary process, as well as to those who are within it. But then there are the laws of the process itself that apply only to those who have entered into this process. Some of these laws you will learn in the course of our future lectures. Now I would like to speak about two important such laws, which will be very useful for you to work with.

The first law is that the further the inner consciousness is advanced in one?s process ? or, to put it differently, the greater one?s spiritual potentiality to go with the process, to be aware of it and to understand it and its meaning ? the greater must be the repercussion if that potentiality is not developed. If you are, for example, ready to follow such a demanding path of self-confrontation and growth, but resist your experiences and states of mind, you will lack peace, joy, meaning and aliveness. This is not true of an individual who is simply not yet at the point where such a path can be followed.

When I speak of repercussions, I do not necessarily mean tragedy, although that, too, is part of it. The greater the discrepancy between your spiritual potentiality and the actual direction you take in life, the more severe your experiences are. But often it is not a tragic event that indicates such a discrepancy. It may even be more often a chronic state of depression, anxiety and, indeed, disconnectedness. The same principle applies to those who are already on such a path. They may, on the whole, be committed to it, but keep a part of themselves in reserve. They do not commit all of themselves to the process, they hold back in fear, shame, secrecy and the wishful thinking that this will not matter. The resulting and inevitable blindness, be it only momentary, must present experiences that are puzzling, painful, disquieting, confusing, or that simply rob you of momentary peace.

Learn to view your daily, even your hourly life so that you see what your moods, your experiences and perceptions reveal about your process. Then you will go with the process and will recognize that the disturbance is a reflection of some blindness. The blindness lies often in a totally different direction from the one you half-consciously fear and assume. The moment you know that, you have the freedom and the possibility to use this knowledge as your gauge, your doorway, your key.

Do you have to allow the discrepancy between your process and your ego state to accumulate into more disturbing elements, so that the repercussions become more unpleasant? This is not a punishment, my friends. It is the grace of God that has made it so, in order to help you to not stay behind in a useless stagnation, to give you the incentive, if you only choose to open your eyes, to use these experiences and pray deeply for the guidance to understand, to let yourself be open to the guidance, and trust yourself to the will of God and go with it. Let yourself be carried with it.

Make, on the one hand, all effort possible to see, to comprehend, to search deeply for the meaning, to overcome resistance. On the other hand, surrender yourself to the inner movement that will carry you. These are not two contradictory attitudes. They are mutually interdependent. Use the positive ego-attributes for the effort to overcome resistance and also surrender the ego control to the guidance of the divine inner will and movement. You have the potential, if you keep this up, to create a faultlessly peaceful and happy life. Being in the human shell of blindness, you have to battle against the as yet unrealized and undeveloped aspects in yourself. Use every opportunity to avoid staying behind. This will prevent repercussions to a considerable degree. The degree is really all that matters, for some blindness, as I said, is quite inevitable.

The more your path progresses, the more aware you become of the inner meaning of the process. You can take the tiniest disturbing mood and ask yourself: ?What does this mean for my inner process? Where am I blind? What could I see differently??
The second law I wish to speak about is making connections. When connections are made, the process evolves in its full glory. When connections are not made, the process remains hidden and events take on an isolated and disquieting appearance. You have to make connections primarily between your outer experiences and the inner process, on the one hand, and, on the other, between inner attitudes that seem totally disconnected from one another. Let me briefly speak about both.

The first ? connections between the outer life, your inner moods, reactions and the process ? can be made only in the way I said before: first consider the possibility of such a connection, open yourself up to its realization. The moment you raise that question and open up to receiving the answer, the meaning will communicate itself to you, sooner or later. As the meanings become clear, as you begin to see all experiences as intrinsically meaningful events relating to your total inner reality and to your entire path, as well as every particle thereof, you will gain a totally new and infinitely more connected understanding of life.

The second category, making connections between inner aspects ? problematic aspects, for example ? is something you begin to experience as you progress on your path. But much more of that can and will happen. You discover, in the course of your path, apparently isolated problems ? outer as well as inner ? such as faults, shortcomings, impurities, conflicts, difficulties whose inner dynamics you as yet ignore ? and they seem to have nothing to do with one another. And yet, as you go deeper, there is a direct connection between the apparently disconnected attitudes and aspects.

For example, what connection could there be between a difficulty in establishing fulfilling relationships and a blockage in your career? Or what connection could exist between a greedy and pushy attitude and, say, sexual dissatisfaction? Or between submissiveness, lack of self-assertion, on the one hand, and covert hostility on the other? I could name many more such examples. Seeing the connection between them will give you a wholesome sense of meaning and a new understanding. Suddenly things are no longer so fragmented and anxiety-producing.

First you may only sense overall connections, but little by little it will become a real and strong understanding in depth. The parts of the whole are all put together. There is nothing in you that does not connect with everything else, whether good, bad, or indifferent, positive or negative. Not only are various positive aspects that seem different in kind from one another connected, not only are different negative aspects connected, but positive and negative aspects are also directly linked on an inner level.

To establish the connections you can and should use your mental abilities to whatever degree you can in a spirit of exercising your mind. But the insights must primarily come from within. You must allow the intuitive faculties to provide you with the connections. Then everything will take on a new form, a new shape.

From lecture 165, EVOLUTIONARY PHASES IN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE REALMS OF FEELINGS, REASON, AND WILL:

All of my friends should, once again, consider seriously what this path is. Why are they involved in it? What is its function? Too often vagueness or confusion about the Pathwork?s purpose creates unnecessary difficulties and misunderstandings. The function of this path is not to remove a bothersome symptom in a person?s life. This is not a treatment of sickness. Nor is the path simply a way of becoming a better person, of developing spiritually. All this happens, of course. But it must be fully understood by all of you, no matter how far you decide to follow it, that the aim of the path is the total realization of the divine kernel. And this is not merely a theory. It is indeed possible, right here and right now.

Let us restate the meaning of self-realization. I shall use new words to reach you in a more dynamic way. Self-realization means to bring forth, as a living reality, the kernel of your spiritual being ? the kernel of self that is eternal. This is, I repeat, not a religious concept for a faraway future. It is immediately available. How can some of the results or manifestations be best described? I might say that a new area is awakened, located in the center of your body, around the solar plexus. From this area new life flows ? new feelings, a new way of perceiving and responding, a new way of knowing life, people, values, and events. Everything is endowed with a new luminosity and a deeper meaningfulness. Beliefs change, or they feel different. The scope of an opinion, conviction, or sensation widens and deepens. Everything becomes fuller. The self becomes at once intensely personal and universal. What appeared to be contradictions suddenly unify without a breach of logic. Fear vanishes, and life becomes unending pleasure just because its opposite is no longer feared. The opposite of the desired state of fulfillment and happiness is not avoided, but its illusory nature is unmasked by going through it. Thus there is nothing to fear. The creative power of the self is available at all times, because of the personality?s freedom from fear.

These words are inadequate to describe the state called self-realization. But they may give you a glimmer of what is to come; perhaps you have begun to experience this state to a small degree once in a while. It comes gradually, and yet, at times, suddenly. Only when all surface layers and all contradictory trends of consciousness have unified with the innermost being can this state become a steady condition of the soul.

From lecture 131, INTERACTION BETWEEN EXPRESSION AND IMPRESSION:

We have, in our pathwork, two fundamental approaches, both of which are necessary. One is finding, expressing, and emptying out what is within you, so that it can be reexamined as to its truthfulness and reality. The second is impressing, molding and directing the powers within yourself, so as to create favorable, or more variable, circumstances. These approaches are interdependent. In order to live meaningfully and dynamically, an interrelationship between them is necessary. I can recognize that many of you, my friends, are often in confusion regarding this happy interaction, this mutual interplay between expressing and impressing, between emptying out and putting in truth. When there is no harmony between these two activities, there must be confusion and darkness.

No matter how important each of these two approaches is by itself, using one instead of the other makes the fulfillment you seek unattainable. It is not easy to know when one and when the other activity is appropriate.

The constant interaction between these two approaches is of great importance, my friends. It would be a mistake to assume that these two activities follow each other consecutively on this path ? first expressing, then impressing. Up to a certain point, a person?s pathwork concentrates on bringing out what is inside. Only then does the examination and analysis of this material begin. Both expressing and impressing must exist throughout, from the beginning onward. Both activities are always necessary. At the very beginning of such a path the personality is still filled with misconceptions and utterly unaware of its confusions. Then all this material needs to be expressed. In order to succeed in such expression it is necessary, at the time, to comprehend and impress the self with truthful statements. This impressing has the power to gather inner forces and direct them into the proper channels. Your intent must be clearly formulated to activate the necessary inner powers. This will prevent stagnation and the possibility of giving up in despair and confusion. In order to accomplish this, even at the early stages when the inner vessel is filled with unclear substance that needs to be emptied out, constant interaction between impressing ? stating truth and formulating constructive intent ? and expressing must prevail.

As you advance on the path and make progress, the inner vessel brings forth the false ideas, wrong conclusions, problems that do not really exist and against which you fight on wrong premises. Then it is even more essential that a harmonious interplay between the two activities exist. The correct timing of when one or the other is appropriate must be found.
There is no rule, my friends, as to when to emphasize one more than the other of these two approaches to the self. The only way you can discover this balance is by feeling into yourself and listening to your innermost soul movements. By doing that you will not only come to be sensitively attuned to the need of the moment in this respect, you will also strengthen your selfhood. By honoring the individual rhythm of your personal path, you assume self-responsibility instead of trying to fit into prescribed rules. Your own cosmic attunement can unfold only when you reach for it consciously and deliberately. It cannot reveal itself if you ignore its existence or pursue blind, rigid practices.

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